Pew Recommends Ways Canada Can Better Protect Whales From Entanglement in Fishing Gear

On Oct. 29, 2024, The Pew Charitable Trusts provided support and suggestions to the Canadian Whalesafe Fishing Gear Strategy, a draft plan authored by the Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO) Canada, a government agency.

In a letter, Pew recommended ways for DFO to strengthen the strategy, including by specifying that fishing gear in high-density fisheries should rely on acoustic methods for marking gear locations, which are more accurate than other methods; that all gear location data should be transmitted to a centralized database stored in the cloud; and that a universal language should be established so that all gear, regardless of manufacturer, can communicate seamlessly.

Pew also recommended that DFO funds the prevention and retrieval of derelict, or ghost, gear; that it increases surveillance of areas in which the endangered North Atlantic right whale is likely to be present; and that it continues funding a program that provides on-demand gear to fishermen for training purposes.